Whittling Away
We took the only other passage that we hadn’t explored out of the hedge maze. Once again, the smell of dirt was heavy in the air. We reached a set of double doors. Gar heard chanting behind them. The voice sounded familiar … Camnor. So, it looked like Varis would get his wish after all. We only hoped that we might have the element of surprise this time as we were approaching from a different direction. Surely he assumed that his fellow Arboreans had done away with us in the other maze. The surprise would be short-lived once we entered the room. Stealth wasn’t an option here. We burst through the doors and immediately attacked. Camnor stopped his chanting. “''You''! You have defied me, and you will pay for your insolence with your life!” Camnor started chanting again, and the four large monoliths began glowing with blue energy. That couldn’t be good. Praxis and Varis had already advanced into the room, and from the monolith next to them, spores shot out creating a thick mist in the air. Camnor cackled seeing the effect the spores had on them. We had to stop him. With the monoliths, the large trees, and the spores in the air, it was hard to keep an eye on your target. Not wanting to get caught in any magick emanating from the monoliths, I hung in the back and drew my bow, taking aim at Camnor. Praxis and Varis rushed the priest, hoping to take him out quickly. The bear and the tree were getting in the way, though. Quite literally, Camnor seemed to have a power to move the tree and bear around the room at will, blocking our progress and retreat. That signaled us to believe that for all of Camnor’s magick, he was actually quite weak when it came to taking a hit. Trying to avoid the bear and the tree as much as possible, we focused all our attacks on Camnor till he fell. The blue, electric energy ceased, and the bear was quickly toppled. Things were going swimmingly, or so we thought. With two foes down and one left, we thought it wouldn’t be long before we were out of here, with energy left to explore more of the complex. The living tree turned out to be a formidable enemy. With his thick bark and hefty branches, he was difficult to wound yet had no issue striking us down. It also didn’t help that each wound we managed to make would slowly heal each round! Gar and I had to do something to make it easier for Varis and Praxis to hit the huge tree. As we were whittling away at him, he was taking hefty swings at us. I was out of healing, and the situation was becoming dire. If we didn’t chop the tree down quickly, we would be forced to retreat and rest. Thankfully, we finally started landing blows consistently, and the tree was unable to heal himself faster than we were cutting him down. When he finally toppled, we breathed a sigh of relief. We were quite depleted, but forged ahead after a short rest. It helped that we knew what lay ahead in the pit room. Hopefully knowledge would be power. (Bwah ha ha, yeah right!) Ahead of us was a large room with a pit that dominated the space. Around the perimeter was a narrow walkway. One misstep and you would slide fifteen feet down the gravelly sides of the pit, into the waiting jaws of a shambling mound. Along the perimeter was a Satyr, playing his reed pipe to aid the mounds down below. Praxis was the first in the room, bold enough to walk along the edge of the pit, and taking aim at a shambling mound with his loud gun. He shot and struck the rolling vine monster. Varis was next with his crossbow, aiming for the same mound Varis had hit. Before I even had a chance to move into the room, a mound plucked me from ten feet back from the ledge and I was engulfed within its belly. Exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I managed to get out of the mound in little time, and backed further into the hallway, hopefully out of reach. Varis had gone to confront the Satyr, and he was too far away to get any benefit from my healing aura. A guard came out after him from a side door, fresh and ready for a fight. Still depleted from our last combat, it wasn’t long before he dropped unconscious. Two mounds remained—one near death—and Praxis was doing his best to take care of that one, when Gar got pulled into the pit! That wasn’t good at all. Thankfully, Gar had Vyrellis, and was able to use her power to teleport him, not only out of the pit, but right beside Varis to feed him a healing potion. Once Varis was back up, Gar turned his attention on the Satyr, knocking the goat-man into the pit. The Satyr begged for mercy from his precarious position. To prove that he no longer wished us harm, he focused his attacks on the one remaining mound, even taking a hit from its rolling, whipping vines. Varis wasn’t the one who usually offered asylum to our former enemies, but the Satyr claimed he knew this area and could help us navigate at least this level of the pyramid. Even though Vyrellis had promised the same thing, she hadn’t really delivered on that promise, often staying mute when danger lay in our path. We thought we had the fight in the bag when Praxis became engulfed in the last shambling mound. It was a very helpless feeling, knowing that there wasn’t a way to heal him or really help him. Thankfully, he managed to break the hold the creature had on him and defeat the thing. Utterly spent, we retreated to the small guard room attached to the pit and set up watch. The Satyr would have first watch, but he wouldn’t be taking it alone. The remaining watches would be largely watching the Satyr, whose name was Andylari-something, so we just called him Andy. ~Zaly